Improvement in slate-pencil sharpeners



UNITED STATES PATENT JAMES M. HICKS, OF BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

Specitica-tion forming part of Letters Patent No. 40,102, dated September 29, 1863.

To ctZZ whomj it may concern:

Be itknown that I, J AMES M. Hicks, of Boston, in the county of Suffolk and State of Massachusetts, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Slate-Pencil Sharpeners; and I hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description ofthe same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, in which- Figure l represents a perspective view of my improved slate-pencil sharpener as constructed when intended to be used as a portable instrumenti. c detached and independent from the slate-frame. Figs. 2, 3, and 4 are respectively side, front, and plan views of the same.

The ordinary practice of sharpening slatepencils by means of knives is not only injurious to the knives themselves by abrasing their edges, or. at least, rendering them dull, but since the knives while scraping or cutting the pencil are necessarily brought to bear with some force against one side of its brittle substance are liable frequently to break ott the point before finished. It has been found, therefore, that it is necessary to sharpen the pencil by reducing its substance on two opposite sides simultaneously, for which purpose two gritty or roughened plane surfaces held in a casing or frame at an angle equal to the point intendedto bewrought on the pencil are used.

The object of my invention is to so construct a slate-pencil sharpener as to dispense with its separate or independent casin g, and I effect this by making the two roughened metallic surfaces in one piece, which is afterward bent in the manner and for the purposes hereinaf er described.

By referring to the accompanying drawings,

Figs. 1, 2, 3, and 4t represent a slatepencil sh arpener without casing or frame permanently to hold the two metallic surfaces at a proper angle in relation to each other. I cut out ot' form represented in blue lines in Fig. l, so as to produce two iiaps connected at one end b v means ot' a strip ot' metal which is perforated in the middle. l then out by means of a chisel or otherwise, in parallel lines, to produce a either single or double cut one side of the flaps. This done, the plate is heated and bent so that the two roughened surfaces shall unite along the lilies a b and c d. The instrument thus shaped is hardened and polished on the outside in a manner well known to metal- Workers.

This Sharpener is used by inserting the pencil between the convergingroughened surfaces, and by giving the pencil a movement to and fro against their grain until its sides are reduced into a point. To make a very line point I insert the pencil in the hole f until it comes in contact with the roughened surfaces and impart to it a rotary motion, as indicated by the arrow g.

Having thus described my invention, I claim- The manufacture of slate-pencil Sharpeners or other equivalent instruments without a separate casing or frame permanently to hold the roughencd surfaces in their relative position, asset forth, by forming both roughened surfaces upon one plate or piece, which is bent in the manner and for the purposes herein described.

- JAMES M. HICKS. Witnesses:

WM. H. HARRISON,

A. POLLAK.

sheet metal oi' suitable thickness a plate of the 

